And this month’s Global Precious Metals MMI was no exception – after hitting yet another all-time low of 68 last month, the sub-index bounced back up to 70 for our January reading.

As for the dead-cat bounce, the Aluminum MMI had what looked like one, my colleague Raul writes:

“Aluminum has declined more than 30% on the year-to-date. A 3% increase after such a price slump means nothing. Indeed, aluminum producers should be worried that prices are not able to make a decent rally from these low levels. That only means that investors are only interested in selling, not buying.”

“Although steel prices took a break from their year-long fall in December, there are still many factors weighing down prices. It seems too early to bet on a recovery in prices. For corrosion-resistant steel buyers, the effects of the new import duties are certainly something to watch.”

And even the Copper MMI had a tiny one too, (stay tuned for that story, coming next week).

So, alongside the baby-sized Fed interest rate hike came a bit of a bounce for our precious metals price index. Welcome to the party.

The Platinum/Palladium Story

Putting aside gold and silver for now (global prices for which, on balance, fell for silver but rose for gold on the MetalMiner IndX), let’s focus again on the more industrial of the precious – the two PGMs we track.

As far as bigger end-use drivers go, the automotive markets have made most of the headlines lately. In China, car sales rose to the highest level ever, increasing in December by more than 23% from November 2014. That is the second consecutive month in which China’s passenger car sales grew by double digits. Here in the US, data from Ward’s Automotive Group shows 1.63 million vehicles were sold in December last year, making this the strongest month of 2015. In all of 2015, sales totaled 17.38 million, which exceeds the previous record high from 2000.

Producers like Johnson Matthey may have reason to look forward to 2016.

Low gas prices, an improving labor market and low interest rates, “coupled with a solid U.S. economy, could also make 2016 a year of robust vehicle sales,” noted Commerzbank analysts recently. “This should boost platinum and palladium, which are used in auto catalysts; palladium in particular should profit because the U.S. market is gasoline-dominated.”

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